In the early years of wireless communications, the Swiss Army mainly relied on German made equipment from Telefunken or Lorenz. Later, in the years just before WWII broke out, Swiss companies started to develop the necessary communications sets with the aim to keep Switzerland independant from foreign suppliers. Amongst these manufacturers, You find names like Autophon AG (Solothurn), Standard Telephone and Radio AG (Zurich, the later Alcatel) and Zellweger AG (Uster).

The early wireless stations used by the Swiss Army carried designations which generally consisted of an abbreviation of the intended use and the transmitting power.

So was TL, the "Tragbar Leichte Funkstation„ the designation for a wireless station that was portable and light (aroung 70 - 100 kg) or FS, the "Fahrbar Schwere Funkstation“ was „mobile and heavy“. High power wireless stations carried designations according to the alphabet, like A-Station, B-Station.

To make it slightly more difficult, the „B-Station“ was also called G1,5K, the abbreviation stands for „Grosse 1,5 kW Kurzwellenfunkstation“ („Big 1,5 kW shortwave station“.
Other equipment got an abbreviation which included the year of their introduction, specially the ones, of which an older model did already exist, an exemple is the KL43, the „Kurz-Lang-Station 1943“ („Short - Long station“); others got a three letter abbreviation easy to remeber: the handie - talkie FOX or the Zellweger four channel transceiver LUX.

After a few years, the naming scheme was comlicated and confusing, so another solution had to worked out.

The year 1951 saw the introduction of a new designation scheme for all military wireless equipment used by the Swiss Army. All receiving equipment got a R-6XX designation, transceivers got an SE-XXX and standalone transmitters a S-XXX name. The first digit stands for the type of equipment or the output power range, followed by an ascending number. Sometimes a suffix used for different setups for mobile („/m“) and fixed („/f“) use.

• SE-0xx: Aircraft wireless sets, used in aircraft of the Swiss Air Force
• SE-1xx: Small portable wireless sets, usually used by a single person (walkie-talkie…)
• SE-2xx: Portable wireless sets, „portable“ at least by several men
• SE-3xx: Mobile wireless statiosn, usually installed in a military vehicle
• SE-4xx: Motorized wireless stations, usually for fixed operation or installed in a spezialised „wireless“ vehicle